It’s trying.
The color changes every time
I look at it.
Jet black, and tinged red.
I don’t think it’s a black widow.
It bit me three times before I found it
Dangling off the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
It has seven legs
Not eight
One missing on the right side.
I can’t stop watching it
Scurry around the table
Climbing over folders and pens
Taking the same route over and over.
It’s a baby
Still doesn’t know
That it can drop its web
Glide to the floor
And be free.
It treads the edge of the table
For the fifth time.
I started this.
I could try to move it
Put it out of its misery
Balance it on the tip of my pencil
And set it on the table next to mine.
Instead I watch
As it crawls toward my professor
And disappear in the folds
Of her fuchsia sweater.
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